kayakingphotos

I'll see what I can do about landowner info. Its not exactly a station where somebody will stumble across it and trespass accidentally..... It's about a 10 mile drive off of the public road. PH1673

Dave, maybe 10 years ago I hiked to a triangulation station disk that hadn't been logged since 1983. I didn't report it since its on private property and I was never able to get good contact info for the property owner (I have access via a relative's hunting lease) If I make it back to it this year and find it, do you want it logged even if I can't get property owner info?

Thanks for the info. I guess I'll have to hunt down some of them and see if they are still around. Having relatively accurate coordinates might help quite a bit. I doubt I'll ever make it to the ones I listed though since the property there is POSTED and PATROLLED..... DaveD, are you also pulling photos from the Geocaching website to include in the datasheets? PG0958 for example. Patrick

I've been thinking about getting back into looking for benchmarks, and I noticed some "unusual" data on a number of datasheets. Quite a few sheets that I've looked at have "HD_HELD1" horizontal position for previously "SCALED" marks. No recovery updates indicate that they were actually found. Has somebody been inventing their location or is something funky going on with the NGS database? Here are some examples: PH0214, PH0216, PH0217, PH0218. PH0214 was last listed as "Not found" in 1970.... The others have a recovery on an "UNK" date Patrick

Here are five PIDs to make you scratch your head..... PH0195, PH0201, PH0211, PH0214, PH0227. They are all for benchmarks and are showing a HD_HELD1 coordinates. AND all five datasheets are indicating that they are "MARK NOT FOUND" in the 1970s. And of course they don't have a "FOUND" status on Geocaching website. Patrick

I've notice on several datasheets for benchmarks that they have "HD_HELD1" coordinates instead of the usual scaled coordinates. Here is an example of a datasheet showing it: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox=PH0307 More marks along that line are the same way. Please note that the only history on the sheet is from 1942. Anybody have any ideas on where NGS might have come up with the data on the sheet? Patrick

It is shown on the Topo Map........ Patrick

You really think there are that many bogus entries? One in twenty? How would you estimate this? You could pull a random sample of all PIDs, but how could you be sure which found entries are legit? -ArtMan- A while back there was a debate on what exactly thoes stats mean. When it says "recovered", does it mean "found", or does it include all types (found, not found, destroyed, post a note) of logs? Patrick

On the NGS website they say that they are doing a hardware and software upgrade on Sunday. I would guess that sometime after that they would have the update. I wonder if the software update will include some new features? (photo uploading????) Patrick

Check out this thread: Can one download the documented histories as well? Does this sound like what you are trying to do? Patrick

I'm not that advanced. I usually just cut and paste the decimal from some other document or website. - Kewaneh The ° is actually Alt + 176. The easy way to get this without having to find it in another document is to use Microsoft Windows "Character Map" (it is under the "Start" menu then "All Programs" then "accessories" then "system tools" (or so......)) You can use it to get whatever character you want. Like ± Æ Ă Ŧ ‰ Patrick

I question if the person who logged MZ1940 (Geocaching page / NGS page) understood what they were looking for. Part of their NGS recovery report says "DISK RECOVERED". The thing that they should have been looking for was the ENTIRE 306 foot tall monument! They also indicated it was "SUITABLE FOR SATELLITE OBSERVATIONS". I guess that you COULD set up your GPS unit on the top when you change the bulb in the red aviation light on the top of the monument...... Patrick I have always reported similar objects as 'suitable for satellite observations'. They are, aren't they? This topic has been talked about before. There are two "options" for what the question is asking. 1 - Can you take a picture of the object from a satellite and 2 - Can you set up a high accuracy GPS unit and see the satellites that it needs to get a good position. From the Professional surveyors on Geocaching and Deb Brown from the NGS, the answer is #2. Here is what the NGS page says: "Generally, a station is suitable for satellite observations if there is a clear and unobstructed view of the sky from approximately 15 degrees above the horizon at the location of the station. Small objects such as a light pole or small tree are excepted." The threads that talk about this are Suitable For Satellite Observation? and Satellite Usage, What qualifies? Patrick p.s. - mloser, according to Z15 the Washington Monument was occupied

I question if the person who logged MZ1940 (Geocaching page / NGS page) understood what they were looking for. Part of their NGS recovery report says "DISK RECOVERED". The thing that they should have been looking for was the ENTIRE 306 foot tall monument! They also indicated it was "SUITABLE FOR SATELLITE OBSERVATIONS". I guess that you COULD set up your GPS unit on the top when you change the bulb in the red aviation light on the top of the monument...... Patrick

There are several old discussions about how to cary entire datasheets with you on a handheld. They include: What Is Your Method, Meshing County DL's with GC.com What Is The Best Way? Bm (only)datasheets To Ppc, What do I need? The full up-to-date datasheets can be found on the NGS website at http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/datasheet.prl If you can live with datasheets that can be several months old, you can select "ARCHIVED DATASHEETS", otherwise you can click on "DATASHEETS". You can download them by PID, COUNTY, etc. (Some counties are so large that trying to download the up-to-date data can cause problems) Patrick

Actually, Rhode Island's Newport County was AWOL - but I picked up a disk there last week. I wouldn't normally log it (it was found only two years ago), but since it was a new county, I felt a bit better about it. As it is, however, it looks like Bristol County, RI, is still at zero disks. I hope to get into Bristol County, MA, sometime soon, but it's going to be difficult not having a car and all. Thank goodness for the Commuter Rail. Of course, Dukes County (mostly Martha's Vineyard) will still be AWOL, and alas, the train doesn't go there. Has anybody cleaned up New Hampshire? I took care of Vermont with PG0505 and PG1357 several weeks ago. I am going to be in New Hampshire around new years day and will find some disks to finish off all of the counties if nobody else has. Patrick

Its not a typo, they are just describing a different measurement than what many people here are familiar with. It refers to how TALL the monument is, or once it is installed, how deep the bottom of the monument is in the ground. Patrick

I would have to agree with Paul. The mark would be burried except for the inch or two that shows above ground. It would likely look like this monument: http://www.berntsen.com/Default.aspx?tabid=1754 There is even a pdf file that shows how to install it. Patrick

Sitting at my computer in Vermont, using Yahoo and Mapquest, I came up with the location of the Zoo. Plugging the info into the benchmark search page, I came up with this: NE1371. Somebody else has posted a photo of the tank/ sign. Does it look like what you saw? Patrick

On the front page of the benchmark hunting section is says "Overall, 72587 benchmarks have been recovered in 100217 logs. There are 736425 total benchmarks in the database." Does anybody have any informaiton on how many of the benchmarks that have been "recovered" are of each type of log (found it, not found, destroyed, post a note)? Also, has anybody looked into how many of the "found it" logs are in error? I have found about 11 logs that have photos that prove that the person logged the mark in error. Most of these are disks, but there is one intersection station that the person logged it as "found" and then submitted a log to NGS where they officially "destroyed" the mark. Patrick

Here is a link to a map that shows where the letters in the PID come from: http://www.geocities.com/sbolish/benchmark.html There are sometimes exceptions to this, but this is mainly right. Patrick